Can Desktop Applications Be Used in Azure/ISV Environment?

Question

This is a very basic and generic question, but no answers were found in searching the internet.

Can a desktop application (WPF/WCF) run in Azure/ISV environment? I know that an Azure VM can host a desktop/client-server application, but that's not what we want. We would like to be running in the Azure/ISV environment fully utilizing it's features such as AI modeling, natural language processing, Copilot stack, data training models, etc.

That is, do we have to convert our desktop application to a web application in order to use Azure/ISV features?

Answer 1

You can use the full Azure functions within a WPF application or a Web App. This functionality is available through API's that can be called outside of the Azure Cloud. Your decision to move to a web application should be based on the deployment scenario. Running a WPF application fully in the cloud does require a VM running Windows. You can however deploy your WPF application to clients by using ClickOnce deployment (Deployment options WPF). It this is not desirable, then a rewrite to a web application is advisable.